Adobe Creative Cloud 2015 Updates: Collaboration & Workflow

With updates to Pro Video apps and the Creative Cloud, Adobe announces expanded collaboration, new workflows, and some major usability enhancements to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and more. Included in the announcements are editorial fine-tuning and broadcast needs, fun new tools for animating 2D characters, updated color workflows and workspaces, and a long-requested Adobe Anywhere for Teams for collaborative editing and versioning.

Recognizing the need for a connected environment in a decreasingly serial creative workflow, Creative Cloud's new updates integrate each app further with the other, so changes and enhancements can happen at any point in the process without losing time or work. The line between mobile and desktop -- or between one app and another -- continues to blur.

Bill Roberts, Senior Director of Product Management, Video, added "Creativity thrives in the midst of a battle between time, money and imagination. It is fueled by connectivity and collaboration It is messy, unpredictable - and one of the most exhilarating things in the world."

WHAT'S NEW IN PREMIERE PRO CC
Several new features in Premiere Pro seek to allow editors to focus on the storytelling instead of editing tasks. Solving the problem of jump cuts in talking head interviews is Morph Cut, which was previously demonstrated as a work in progress at last year's Adobe Max. Morph Cut uses face tracking and frame interpolation to build seamless transitions between otherwise distracting cut points.

A new color workspace with a Lumetri color panel (and improved scopes) vastly improves the built in color correction process -- becoming similar to Adobe Lightroom's color processing -- and allows editors to do more with color without needing to jump to Speedgrade for additional features. And new task oriented workspaces build around common tasks within editing and finishing in Premiere.

New support for Canon XF-AVC, MXF-wrapped JPEG 2000, and Panasonic 4K_HS allows for expanded native editing. Adjustments to audio workflow make the "modify audio channels" dialog window easier to use (and less confusing), and introduce more multichannel exporting options. And editing refinements are minor adjustments that make a big deal to the editor -- like fine-tuning clips with a new composite trim view, viewing Source Settings as Master Clip effects to easily adjust settings and see the changes apply across all related clips, and significantly improved AAF support for working with digital audio workstations.

Adobe Media Encoder also has some significant updates, including the introduction of "Time Tuner", which allows you to adjust the final runtime of your project to match delivery specs without the need for micro editing. Time Tuner imperceptibly adds or removes frames during shot changes and in sections with still images, low visual activity, or quiet audio.

Support was also added for 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby Digital audio. And you can export multiple audio channel configurations in a single QuickTime file. For example, a single QuickTime file could hold both two-channel stereo and 5.1-channel surround audio, with each playing on the appropriate systems.

AFTER EFFECTS CC UPDATES
My favorite update to After Effects isn't as much fun to look at as the rest (unless you've spent many hours in After Effects waiting on RAM Preview) -- Uninterrupted Preview. View design iterations, adjust composition properties, and even resize interface panels without halting composition playback. This should significantly reduce frustration with After Effects usage in general, and help you get design work completed quickly.

The coolest update to After Effects CC is Face Tracker, which allows you to do simple mask tracking without the need for manual adjustments. Face Tracker allows for a high level of fine-tuning to the mask, tracking specific points on the face and even measuring changes, like how wide a mouth is open. This data can be exported to Adobe Character Animator.

Face Tracking data can be used to animate 2D characters with simple rigging controls

CHARACTER ANIMATOR
And this is why the Face Tracker is cool. With Adobe Character Animator, Face Tracking data can be used to animate 2D characters with simple rigging controls. You can also use your webcam to track your own facial movements and apply them in real time to a character -- when you talk, your character talks. The process is automated, which is great news for those of us who have spent many hours using scripts and keyframes to accomplish the same goals.

Characters are built in Photoshop or Illustrator, including eyes, head, mouth and other features. Character Animator uses the layer names in the document to automatically rig the puppet. Facial tracking controls the position, scale, rotation, and expressions of your character's facial features.

With Adobe Character Animator, Face Tracking data can be used to animate 2D characters with simple rigging controls. Facial tracking controls the position, scale, rotation, and expressions of your character's facial features.

Other behaviors, like blinking and breathing, can be triggered with the keyboard or automated. You can also add physics-based animations, like wind-blown hair or earrings, or add particles for more controls.

ADOBE ANYWHERE FOR TEAMS
Responding to a heavy demand for a version of Adobe Anywhere for smaller scale teams, Adobe introduced Anywhere for Teams -- collaborative editing and version control on a smaller scale.

While Adobe Anywhere's enterprise customers utilize Mercury Playback engine for remote editing, the Teams version focuses on using centralized media across any standard network. This single-location deployment of Anywhere eliminates the remote editing capabilities, significantly reducing the hardware costs. A "Collaboration Hub" contains the project information and metadata database, and manages user access. Support for third-party hardware-based failover ensures redundancy that lets editors keep working without interruption during a system hardware failure.

OTHER CREATIVE CLOUD UPDATESCreative Cloud libraries allow colors to be shared instantly across apps, or with team members or coworkers. Premiere Clip is also a part of this ecosystem and can grab looks created in the app, or in a new mobile app titled "Project Candy" which allows the user to capture the light quality and color of a scene and apply it to a video.

The new mobile app titled "Project Candy" allows the user to capture the light quality and color of a scene and apply it to a video.

Sharing looks, links and clips across multiple apps is definitely the future for Creative Cloud, with more and more options for collaboration being added with each release.

Adobe Audition now allows you to preview video from Premiere without rendering first, and allows you to replace assets while preserving edits.

Adobe Prelude allows for voiceover narration in a streamlined workflow for rough cuts.

Adobe Speedgrade also preserves Lumetri decisions made in Premiere Pro.

NAB SHOW 2015
With all new updates to Creative Cloud, Adobe reiterates that the goal is to make the editorial process less intrusive, so creativity can take over. Demos of new technologies and products will be on display at the NAB Show in Las Vegas April 13-16. Creative Cloud updates are expected to be available this spring.

The changes just within Premiere Pro are stunning ... and yes, there as some oft-wished for things not included, but the new color workspace is a shock at first ... as it's so similar to the Lightroom and ACR module that has been a frequent request to unify the color controls across products. For anyone who's ever worked in Lightroom's Develop module or ACR through Bridge or Photoshop, you're ... at home in a good grading tool.

When this is released, most work that's been "jobbed" over to SpeedGrade via Direct Link workflow (which takes all of 10 seconds each way) ... can be done easily and sometimes quicker within PrPro now.

And that face masking in AfterEffects ... combined with the character animation app ... are going to have one of my business partners drooling.

And of course, the things "we" may not get ... I'll just keep wish-listing. While enjoying what we do get.

The changes just within Premiere Pro are stunning ... and yes, there as some oft-wished for things not included, but the new color workspace is a shock at first ... most work that's been "jobbed" over to SpeedGrade via Direct Link workflow (which takes all of 10 seconds each way) ... can easily be done within PrPro now. Perhaps even faster, too.

And that face masking in AfterEffects ... combined with the character animation app ... are going to have one of my business partners drooling.

And of course, the things "we" may not get ... I'll just keep wish-listing. While enjoying what we do get.

A Motion Graphics Template, referred to as a MOGRT, is an animated sequence that is self-contained and can be used in Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Premiere Rush and Adobe After Effects, combining graphics, text, audio and video files, as well as vector or still images (including logos), to create a still or animation that can then be customized by the MOGRT user. The result is a dynamic creative tool that provides design freedom and is consistent to its users across apps and devices. Reuse, share, and even sell them!

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When most people hear the words "alpha channels", they think "transparency", but that's not exactly accurate. The truth is more complex, and a quite bit more interesting! Join longtime VFX artist, editor, software developer, and business owner Simon Ubsdell for Part 3 of the best look behind the technology of compositing that you've ever seen, packed with practical advice for applying the secrets of alpha channels that's simply not possible before understanding these underlying principles. No matter which applications you're using for editing, compositing, or visual effects, this one is a must-see!

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Problems with Adobe After Effects? Can't import or export QuickTime videos? Exports too big? Missing codecs? AE guru and VFX whiz Tobias Gleissenberger of Surfaced Studio has the answers you're looking for to make every project come to completion more smoothly, including a comparison of exported file sizes for common codecs.

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